Thursday, July 14, 2005

The drinks are on Bertie!

The Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has been busy defending proposed pay rises for himself and Government colleagues.The Cabinet approved a report drawn up by businessman Tony O’Brien, which is understood to recommend wage increases for ministers and senior civil servants of around 6%.

Under the recommendations the Taoiseach’s salary will rise to over €250,000 from its current 232,000 euro, while ministers can expect to earn almost €200,000, up from the current €185,000.

Mr Ahern claimed the pay rises were determined through an independent process.

"In relation to the increase, it is less than the average increase that was paid to all of the other areas in benchmarking so it is less than what the equivalent was in all other sectors of the economy, I have no difficulty about that" said the Taoiseach. (Of course you've no difficulty with that Bertie, you're in the money!)"This was an independent process, done separately and people will see the report when it’s published."

I'm very interested in this report as I'm sure the rest of my fellow countrymen are. I'm particularly interested in how the salary increase for ministers is justified, these are the same ministers remember who are already on their annual THREE MONTH summer break.The laughable things is, because they're all on their break, there won't be any debate on this issue at all when the report is published!And they wonder why us voters view them in such a negative light! They're a shower of gangsters!